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Why User Created Content Is King!

As stated in the September 2007 issue of Entrepreneur: “the number of websites grew by 30.9 million in 2006.” As part of this tremendous website growth innovators are creating improved methods for end-users to share information on websites.

This ability to have “user-created-content” or “user-generated-content” placed on a website creates a win-win situation for webmasters and users alike. The website has new content added to it, which the search engines love, and the users get to interact with the websites. This is a perfect tool, especially for home based internet businesses.

What is It?

User Created Content is becoming more available to the general public due to new technologies such as digital video, blogging, podcasts, etc. It is Web 2.0!!!

A great example of the use of this new medium is Amazon. Amazon lists thousands of products. One of the key features of this website is the ability for customers to leave reviews of these products.

So now instead of just the website providing information, it can now be an interactive experience between the publisher and the user. Many other examples exist of this new Web 2.0 technology – You Tube, My Space, Facebook, Flickr, etc.

Pros and Cons

*Pros
-Increased methods of content submittals
-Wider content provider base
-Allows others to expand on the knowledge base of a site
-Allows users to become online participants
-Increased traffic to a website due to:
o In-pointing links
o new content added to site (search engines love this)

* Cons
- May be content duplication
- Ability to verify source of material
- Biased material
- Ability to organize and control appropriate material for the appropriate web page

Control Guidelines

How does one control the content (foul language, pornographic pictures, relevant topic material, etc.) that a user may post? The solution to this issue is that Website Administrators would need to be able to moderate the content that users wish to post on a site. One of the best ways to control this unverified and unedited content is for the webmaster to have control of the submitted material prior to the actual posting of the material. What one would call a pre-production moderation so that the quality and relevance of the material can be monitored.

Product Offerings

I’ve been able to locate two online product offerings that webmasters can purchase and install that give users the ability to create content for a website (remember - websites – not blogs, YouTube or social sites), but your personal or business website.

They are:

* Instant Site Comments (www.instantsitecomments.com)

* This product can be purchased by anyone and appears to be an easy program to install on your website.

* Contains functionality to moderate postings prior to the user content actually going live on a website.

* This product is being offered for $67 and is an instant download once purchased.

* C2 by SiteBuildIt (www.sitesell.com/c2-intro.html)

* This is an add-on module for the SiteBuildIt product line, i.e. you must be a user of the SiteBuildIt system to be able to use their product.

* This product is offered at $99 and from all of the material that I have read about how it functions this is a superior product to the Instant Site Comments product listed above.

Summary

Giving consumers a true voice and ability to interact online will continue to be a growing trend. Both webmasters and users will continue to reap the best of both worlds by participating in user-generated-content. This process is creating many new opportunities for online entrepreneurs, especially home based internet businesses and consumers alike.

Mark Seyster is a successful self-employed online home based business owner. His motto is: Be persistent in everything you do and you will achieve success!